Hikikomori is a Japanese term that refers to the phenomenon of reclusive teenagers or young adults who withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme levels of isolation and seclusion. The term hikikomori refers to both the sociological phenomenon in general as well as to people belonging to this social group.
The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare defines hikikomori as people who refuse to leave their house and, therefore, isolate themselves from society in their homes for a period exceeding six months.
The psychiatrist Tamaki Saito defines hikikomori as “a state that has become a problem by the late mid-twenties, that involves cooping oneself up in one’s own place and not participating in society for six months or longer, but that does not appear to have another psychological problem as its main source.”
More recently, researchers have suggested six specific criteria required to “diagnose” hikikomori:
- spending most of the day and almost every day confined to home,
- marked and persistent avoidance of social situations,
- symptoms that significantly interfere with the person’s normal routine, occupational (or academic) functioning, or social activities or relationships,
- perceiving the withdrawal as ego-syntonic,
- duration of at least six months, and
- no other mental disorder that accounts for the social withdrawal and avoidance.
While the degree of the phenomenon varies on an individual basis, in the most extreme cases, some people remain in isolation for years or even decades. Often hikikomori start out as school refusals or futoko in Japanese. The Ministry of Health estimates that approximately 3.6 million hikikomori live in Japan, about one third of whom are aged 30 and older.
While many people feel the pressures of the outside world, hikikomori react by complete social withdrawal. In some cases, they lock themselves in their room, apartment or house for extended periods, sometimes measured in years. They normally have few, if any, friends. While hikikomori prefer indoor activities, some venture outdoors on occasion. The withdrawal from society usually starts gradually. Affected people may appear unhappy, lose their friends, become insecure, shy, and talk less.
According to government figures released in 2010, there are 700,000 individuals living as hikikomori with an average age of 31. Still, the numbers vary widely from expert to expert. Among these are the hikikomori who are now in their 40s and have spent 20 years in isolation.
This group is generally referred to as the “first-generation hikikomori,” and there is concern about their reintegration into society in what is known as “the 2030 problem,” when they are in their 60s and their parents begin to die off.
Additionally, the authorities estimate 1.55 million people to be on the brink of becoming hikikomori. Originally, psychologist Tamaki Saito, who first coined the phrase, estimated that there may be over one million hikikomori in Japan, or about 1% of the entire Japanese population.
But, considering that hikikomori teenagers are hidden and their parents are often reluctant to talk about the problem, it is highly difficult to estimate the figure accurately. People who have all the features of a hikikomori have also begun to emerge in France and the USA.
Theories on cause: PDDs and autism spectrum disorders. Hikikomori is similar to the social withdrawal exhibited by some people with pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs), a group of disorders that include Asperger syndrome, PDD-NOS, and “classic” autism.
This has led some psychologists to suggest that hikikomori patients may be affected by PDDs and other disorders that affect social integration but that their disorders are altered from their typical Western presentation because of the societal and cultural pressures unique to Japan.
Suwa & Hara (2007) discovered that 5 of 27 cases of hikikomori had a high-functioning pervasive developmental disorder (HPDD) and used a sketch to illustrate the difference between primary hikikomori (without any obvious mental disorder) and hikikomori with HPDD; moreover, 10 out of 27 had primary hikikomori.
According to Michael Zielenziger’s book, “Closing out the Sun: How Japan Created its Own Lost Generation,” the syndrome is more closely related to post-traumatic stress disorder. The writer claimed that the hikikomori interviewed for the book had discovered independent thought and a sense of self that the current Japanese environment could not accommodate. The syndrome also closely parallels the terms “avoidant personality disorder” and “social anxiety disorder” (also known as “social phobia”).
Social and cultural influence. Sometimes referred to as a social problem in Japanese discourse, hikikomori has a number of potential contributing factors. Though acute social withdrawal in Japan appears to affect both genders equally, because of differing social expectations for maturing boys and girls, the most widely reported cases of hikikomori are from middle- and upper-middle-class families whose sons, typically their eldest, refuse to leave the home, often after experiencing one or more traumatic episodes of social or academic failure.
In “The Anatomy of Dependence” (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1973, translated by John Bester), Takeo Doi identifies the symptoms of hikikomori and explains its prevalence as arising in the Japanese psychological concept of amae (in Freudian terms, “passive object love,” typically of the kind between mother and baby).
Other Japanese observers, such as academic Shinji Miyadai and novelist Ryu Murakami, have offered analysis of the hikikomori phenomenon, and have distinguished causal relationships with the modern Japanese societal conditions of anomy, amae, and atrophying paternal influence in atomic household child-rearing methods.
Young adults may feel overwhelmed by modern Japanese society or be unable to carry out their expected societal functions as they have not yet formulated a sense of personal honne and tatemae – one’s “true self” and one’s “public facade” – necessary to cope with the paradoxes of maturity. The dominant link of hikikomori centers on the transition from youth to the duties and expectations of adult life. Indications are that advanced industrialized societies such as modern Japan fail to provide sufficient meaningful transition rites for advancing certain susceptible types of youth into mature functions, as do many societies.
Japan exerts a great deal of pressure on adolescents to be successful and perpetuate the existing societal status quo. A traditionally strong emphasis on nut, stiff hierarchies, and the resulting, potentially intimidating battalion of societal expectations, duties, and responsibilities in Japanese society contribute to this pressure on immature adults.
Confucian instructions de-emphasizing the individual and favoring a conformist stance to ensure societal harmony in a stiffly hierarchized society have shaped much of the Sinosphere, perhaps explaining the emergence of the hikikomori phenomenon in other East Asian states.
In general, the prevalence of hikikomori inclinations in Japan may be encouraged and facilitated by three primary factors:
- Middle-class richness in a post-industrial society such as Japan allows parents to support and feed an adult child in the home indefinitely. Lower-income households do not have hikikomori children because a socially retreating youth is forced to work outside the home.
- The inability of Japanese parents to recognize and act upon the youth’s slide into isolation; soft parenting, or even a codependent collusion between mother and son, known as amae in Japanese.
- A decade of flat economic indicators and a shaky job market in Japan make the preexisting system requiring years of competitive schooling for elite jobs appear like a pointless effort to many. While Japanese fathers of the current generation of youth still enjoy lifetime employment at transnational corporations, incoming employees in Japan enjoy no such guarantees in today’s job market. (See Freeters and NEET for more on this.)
Some younger Japanese people begin to surmise that the system put in place for their grandparents and parents no longer works. And for some, the lack of a clear life goal makes them susceptible to social withdrawal as a hikikomori.
Japanese Education System See also: Kyoiku mama, the Japanese education system, like those found in China, Singapore, and South Korea, puts great demands upon youth. A multitude of expectations, high stress on competition, and the rote memorization of facts and figures for the purpose of passing entrance tests into the next level of education in what could be termed a rigid pass-or-fail ideology induce a high level of stress.
Repeating the traditional Confucian values of society, the educational system is still viewed as playing an important part in society’s overall productivity and success. In this social frame, students often face significant pressure from parents and the society in general to conform to its dictates and philosophies.
These philosophies, while part of modern Japanese society, are increasingly being rejected by Japanese youth in changing ways such as hikikomori, freeter, NEET (Not currently engaged in Employment, Education, or Training), and parasite singles. The term “Hodo-Hodo zoku” (the “So-So tribe”) applies to younger workers who refuse promotion in order to minimize stress and maximize free time.
Starting in the 1960s, the pressure on Japanese youth to succeed began to turn earlier in their lives, sometimes starting before preschool, where even toddlers had to compete through an entrance test for the privilege of attending one of the best preschools.
This was said to prepare children for the entrance test of the best kindergarten, which in turn prepared the child for the entrance test of the best primary school, junior high school, high school, and finally for university. Many teenagers take one year off after high school to study alone for the university entrance test and are known as ronin. More esteemed universities have more difficult tests. The most esteemed university with the most difficult test is the University of Tokyo.
Since 1996, the Japanese Ministry of Education has taken steps to address this “pressure-cooker” educational environment and instill greater creative thought in Japanese youth by significantly relaxing the school schedule from six-day weeks to five-day weeks and dropping two subjects from the daily agenda, with new academic curriculum more comparable to Western educational models. However, Japanese parents are sending their children to private cram schools, known as juku, to “make up” for lost time.
After graduating from high school or university, Japanese youth also have to face a very difficult job market in Japan, often finding only part-time employment and ending up as freeters with little income, unable to start a family.
Another source of pressure is from their classmates, who may hassle and bully (ijime) some students for a variety of reasons, including physical appearance (especially if they are overweight or have severe acne problems), wealth, educational or athletic performance. Some have been punished for bullying or truancy, bringing shame to their families. Refusal to participate in society makes hikikomori an extreme subset of a much larger group of younger Japanese that includes parasite singles and freeters.
Fiscal hikikomori tend to be financially supported by their parents or by receiving societal aid. They seldom work, as many occupations require socialization, although this is rare.
Some hikikomori have become highly affluent. For example, starting with 1.6 million yen (April, US $14,000) in 2000, Takashi Kotegawa grew his account in the JASDAQ Securities Exchange 10,000 times over 7 years to 17 billion yen (April, US $152 million). He first gained fame in Japan after he managed to earn 2 billion yen (April, US $20 million) in 10 minutes from a Mizuho Securities order blunder.
Some organizations, such as the non-profit Japanese organization NPO Lila, have been trying to combat the financial burden the hikikomori phenomenon has had on Japan’s economy. In popular culture, hikikomori characters have been prominently featured in recent Japanese media, such as the 2002 novel Welcome to the N.H.K., which features a hikikomori protagonist, and the 2005 manga series Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, which has one of the teacher’s main characters as a hikikomori student. Both of these stories have received popular anime adaptations.
Other examples include the main characters of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day and Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko. Kurosawa features a main character who becomes a hikikomori and concentrates on how it affects her family. In the 2011 novel Ready Player One, two of the secondary characters are hikikomori, and the events of the novel supposedly caused the number of hikikomori young men and women to increase by “millions.”
